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Iran vows full support to Iraq
Offers security assistance to help curb violence
Iraq’s prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, (left) got a red-carpet treatment during his first official visit to Iran. He was greeted by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at a ceremony.
Iraq’s prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, (left) got a red-carpet treatment during his first official visit to Iran. He was greeted by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at a ceremony. (AP PHOTO/ISNA)
By Parisa Hafezi, Reuters | September 13, 2006
TEHRAN --Iran's president pledged undying support for Baghdad's new government yesterday, telling Iraq's visiting prime minister and fellow Shi'ite Islamist, Nouri al-Maliki, that Tehran would help him end the violence at home.
The United States, wary of the relationship building between its Iranian adversaries and Iraqi leaders brought to power by the US invasion, again accused Tehran of funding ``terrorists" in Iraq and said its biggest contribution would be to stop.
It was a sentiment aired by Iraqi officials before Maliki's first official visit to his bigger, powerful neighbor but which was left unsaid in public on the first day of his trip.
In Iraq itself, a US general denied that an intelligence report suggested his troops had ``lost" its biggest province to Al Qaeda and other insurgents from Saddam Hussein's once-dominant Sunni Muslim minority, but stressed only Maliki's government was in a position to subdue the rebels in the end.
``We will give our full assistance to the Iraqi government to establish security," President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran told a joint news conference after meeting Maliki in Tehran.
Renewing his calls for the 145,000 US troops in Iraq to go home, he was later quoted by official news agency IRNA saying: ``Iran and Iraq, as two brotherly countries, will remain beside each other forever, and uninvited guests will leave the region."
Ahmadinejad, whose attachment to developing nuclear technology and antipathy to Israel has earned him Washington's anger, also spoke positively of Iraq's ``integrity".
That might be a response to accusations from Iraq's Sunni minority and the Sunni rulers of the rest of the Arab world that non-Arab Iran might back a Shi'ite breakaway in oil-rich southern Iraq under Iraq's US-backed federal constitution.
Maliki, whose spokesman said on Monday that the main message for Iran was that it should not ``interfere" in Iraq, made little comment: ``This visit will be useful for cooperation between Iran and Iraq, in all political, security and economic fields."
The two countries, who fought an eight-year war in the 1980s, signed an agreement covering these areas.
Iraq's national security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, said on Iraqi state television one of the main agreements concerned tightening security on the lengthy border.
US and British officials accuse Iranian militants of supplying high-powered bombs and financing to Iraqis fighting their troops.
President Bush's spokesman, Tony Snow, said: ``The most important thing that Iran can do is not be part of the problem by financing separatist groups and terrorist groups who are trying to undermine democracy in Iraq."
On the eve of the two-day visit, Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said that Maliki would deliver a blunt message that Iran should not interfere in Iraq although he stopped short of endorsing US charges of Iranian ``meddling."
Since forming a national unity government four months ago, Maliki has vowed to curb militant Shi'ite factions, some of whom also have links with movements in Iran, as part of efforts to avert a civil war that could draw in neighboring powers.
In the latest violence, police and an Interior Ministry source said a car bomb targeting a passing US military convoy in west Baghdad killed six civilians and wounded over a dozen.
State television also said gunmen attacked a Shi'ite mosque overnight near the violent, mixed city of Baqubah, killing seven.
Police said dozens of mortars and rockets were fired in Khan Bani Sad and that the casualty toll was still unclear.
© Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.
Offers security assistance to help curb violence
Iraq’s prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, (left) got a red-carpet treatment during his first official visit to Iran. He was greeted by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at a ceremony.
Iraq’s prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, (left) got a red-carpet treatment during his first official visit to Iran. He was greeted by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at a ceremony. (AP PHOTO/ISNA)
By Parisa Hafezi, Reuters | September 13, 2006
TEHRAN --Iran's president pledged undying support for Baghdad's new government yesterday, telling Iraq's visiting prime minister and fellow Shi'ite Islamist, Nouri al-Maliki, that Tehran would help him end the violence at home.
The United States, wary of the relationship building between its Iranian adversaries and Iraqi leaders brought to power by the US invasion, again accused Tehran of funding ``terrorists" in Iraq and said its biggest contribution would be to stop.
It was a sentiment aired by Iraqi officials before Maliki's first official visit to his bigger, powerful neighbor but which was left unsaid in public on the first day of his trip.
In Iraq itself, a US general denied that an intelligence report suggested his troops had ``lost" its biggest province to Al Qaeda and other insurgents from Saddam Hussein's once-dominant Sunni Muslim minority, but stressed only Maliki's government was in a position to subdue the rebels in the end.
``We will give our full assistance to the Iraqi government to establish security," President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran told a joint news conference after meeting Maliki in Tehran.
Renewing his calls for the 145,000 US troops in Iraq to go home, he was later quoted by official news agency IRNA saying: ``Iran and Iraq, as two brotherly countries, will remain beside each other forever, and uninvited guests will leave the region."
Ahmadinejad, whose attachment to developing nuclear technology and antipathy to Israel has earned him Washington's anger, also spoke positively of Iraq's ``integrity".
That might be a response to accusations from Iraq's Sunni minority and the Sunni rulers of the rest of the Arab world that non-Arab Iran might back a Shi'ite breakaway in oil-rich southern Iraq under Iraq's US-backed federal constitution.
Maliki, whose spokesman said on Monday that the main message for Iran was that it should not ``interfere" in Iraq, made little comment: ``This visit will be useful for cooperation between Iran and Iraq, in all political, security and economic fields."
The two countries, who fought an eight-year war in the 1980s, signed an agreement covering these areas.
Iraq's national security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, said on Iraqi state television one of the main agreements concerned tightening security on the lengthy border.
US and British officials accuse Iranian militants of supplying high-powered bombs and financing to Iraqis fighting their troops.
President Bush's spokesman, Tony Snow, said: ``The most important thing that Iran can do is not be part of the problem by financing separatist groups and terrorist groups who are trying to undermine democracy in Iraq."
On the eve of the two-day visit, Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said that Maliki would deliver a blunt message that Iran should not interfere in Iraq although he stopped short of endorsing US charges of Iranian ``meddling."
Since forming a national unity government four months ago, Maliki has vowed to curb militant Shi'ite factions, some of whom also have links with movements in Iran, as part of efforts to avert a civil war that could draw in neighboring powers.
In the latest violence, police and an Interior Ministry source said a car bomb targeting a passing US military convoy in west Baghdad killed six civilians and wounded over a dozen.
State television also said gunmen attacked a Shi'ite mosque overnight near the violent, mixed city of Baqubah, killing seven.
Police said dozens of mortars and rockets were fired in Khan Bani Sad and that the casualty toll was still unclear.
© Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.
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